Unmasking the Truth: Pat Potter’s Latest Book Everybody Lies Exposes the Hidden Realities of Addiction and Recovery

Pat Potter has never been one to follow the script—and his latest book, Everybody Lies: Addiction, Recovery, and the Brutal Truth Behind the Curtain, is proof.

In a world saturated with recovery memoirs, self-help soundbites, and glossy treatment center marketing, Everybody Lies is something different. It’s not a redemption arc. It’s not a cheerleading manual for the 12 Steps. It’s a surgical dissection of the denial, dysfunction, and deception that saturate the recovery industry—and the families, professionals, and clients trapped inside it.

Potter writes not as a clinician, but as a crisis manager and licensed private investigator with over 30 years of recovery himself. Trained in surveillance, behavioral analysis, and high-stakes intervention, he spent years finding people the system had given up on. That real-world experience—tracking the lost, exposing the fraud, and confronting hard truths—formed the foundation of a method he now calls S.E.R.E.: Stabilize, Engage, Recover, Emerge.

The book is both a case study and a confession. Through raw, unflinching stories of sabotage, relapse, and institutional failure, Potter reveals why so many well-intentioned interventions don’t work—and what it actually takes to break through denial. Readers meet the mother who unraveled when her son got sober. The client who spoke fluent therapy while secretly using. The family that preferred dysfunction to change because chaos was their only glue. They’re not outliers—they’re patterns. And they point to a deeper, systemic problem.

Everybody Lies also turns the spotlight on the industry itself. Potter pulls no punches as he exposes the financial incentives that reward relapse, the hollow metrics used to justify success, and the all-too-common practice of marketing grief as growth. Quiet patients are labeled success stories; expressive ones are seen as liabilities. Relapse is expected. Honesty is inconvenient.

And yet, beneath the cynicism, there’s a thread of hope—but not the kind you’ll find in a brochure. It’s the kind of hope that comes from clarity. From naming what’s broken. From speaking the truth plainly, without apology. Because as Potter reminds us, real recovery doesn’t start with comfort—it starts with honesty.

Whether you’re a parent burned by false promises, a professional tired of playing by broken rules, or someone who's lost someone to the revolving door of treatment, Everybody Lies offers something rare: perspective from someone who’s been on both sides of the system and refused to look away.

Pat Potter isn’t trying to be liked. He’s trying to make sure fewer people die.

And that’s exactly why this book matters.